Pomegranate

I was in Montreal last weekend and saw some very pretty pomegranate plants - about 5' tall - in the botanical garden there. I see that they take several years to flower, so I'd rather buy a small plant than buy seeds. Does anyone know where one could be bought in the lower mainland, or by mail in Canada?

Were these growing inside the conservatory? We've only been able to keep a dwarf-formed one alive outside (and I'm not sure if it survived last winter).

It looks like Flora Exotica carries some plants - that's not a recommendation, though, as I've never dealt with the company. Do your due research on the vendor. You can also find others with a search for [GOOGLE]punica granatum indoor site:ca[/GOOGLE]

They were growing outside by the bonsai section of the Chinese Garden. I did not ask if they are taken inside for the winter there, but will check - they are pretty good at answering questions via e-mail.

There is an Italian gardener in Burnaby that has a fruiting and flowering pomegranate in Burnaby (amongst a lot of other things that are not supposed to grow here in canada!!). Iy is in a very sheltered area and this year had a lot of flowers but I doub't we will get enough hot weather to make them ripen.

the plant is up against a brick wall against the house out of the wind and rain and is approximately 3m tall.

I purchased a very small pomegranate last spring by mail order. It was only about six inches high with only two branches. After spending it's summer with me, still in a pot, it has grown into a nice rounded bush about 16" high and wide. I intend to leave it outside this winter, under our eaves to protect it from getting drowned, but next spring it is going into the ground.

There is a pretty nice micro-climate in my yard as it is on the ocean but in a very protected little bay. My coldest temperature in 10 years has been -5 C. So I'm not taking too much of a risk with leaving it outside. Hopefully it will do well in our climate and bear fruit as I love pomegranates. I believe mine is also "Wonderful". Let's hope it is.

Pomegranate plants have been grown for years outdoors in Seattle, although it appeared many older ones were done in by the record winter of 1990. Last time (this past August) I was at the Hulda Klager Lilac Garden, Woodland, WA I was interested to see an old clump of the pomegranate cultivar with the doulbe, orange-and-white flowers growing in the ground, south of the house. Winters would be expected to be colder there than inside Seattle (temperature range at U.W. (Montlake) weather station 10F-103F) but warmer summers might provide compensatory hardening of growth.

Montreal is definitely much too cold for these to overwinter outdoors.

I believe that you need a minimum Zone 7, more comfortably a 7B or 8. Apparently the old USSR was working at developing cold tolerant pomegranates that would grow within their union of countries and they did succeed. There is some literature on the web about their efforts with perhaps more information about the zones they were working within. Islandweaver

I believe that you need a minimum Zone 7, more comfortably a 7B or 8. Apparently the old USSR was working at developing cold tolerant pomegranates that would grow within their union of countries and they did succeed. There is some literature on the web about their efforts with perhaps more information about the zones they were working within. Islandweaver

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hmmmm?????

my grandfather has some land in greece higher altitude...excellent soil no stones at all and deep red. Many years ago this land was an excellent vineyard..but people died, others moved to cities and occupied themselves with other work. So there is a huge amount of land...good soil just sitting there doing nothing. Pomegranates are in big demand there and you get a $$$bonus grant from the EU for growing them

It will be a good idea to plant pomegranates...they need little water not huge amounts to keep thriving. Zone 7 is about -10 degrees celcius as lowest temp?

I've done a fair bit of research on cold hardy pomegranates and have narrowed my search down to the cold hardy 'russian' varieties. 'salavatski' seems to be the most cold hardy and 'parfyanka' not far behind but likely has better fresh eating seeds. I've been able to find two places in Canada with cold hardy Pomegranates. Pomegranates has both varieties I'm looking for and http://www.tropic.ca/ which just has a generic 'hardy russian' which is likely a salavatski but not sure. Shipping is pricy from the tropicofcanada out east and tropic.ca is out of stock this year.

I bought a pomegranate from Phoenix Perennials in Richmond about 5 years ago, Punica Granatum (possibly 'Salavatski' but I'm not sure of the cultivar as I lost the tag). It's now about 8ft tall and flowered for the first time last year.

We have a pomegranate in our yard here in the Cowichan. It was about 4 feet tall when we bought the property four years ago. It is now about 12 to 15 ft tall, flowers all summer, and last rear produced about 30 pomegranates. The fruit turns red, but really doesn’t fully ripen as early autumn chill and rain end the ripening.

Does anyone has managed to get ripe fruits from home grown pomegranate tree/bush in Canada? What month these fruits can be harvested?
Usually I would not expect to grow pomegranate in my country, because our winters are way too long, dark and cold, but this winter we had minimum -11°C and for few days only, so an idea to grow a pomegranate does not sound so crazy any more.